


The Unlikely Affair

by AQuarterPast



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Crack Taken Seriously, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-03
Updated: 2020-02-03
Packaged: 2021-02-28 07:15:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22549930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AQuarterPast/pseuds/AQuarterPast
Summary: "It's not that we had an affair, it's that we could have had an affair." The first five years after Kathryn Janeway gets her crew home are a little bit more interesting (and boring) than she expected them to be, and she's pretty sure that the scuttlebutt is broken.
Relationships: The Doctor (Star Trek) & Kathryn Janeway
Kudos: 12





	1. I

**Author's Note:**

> (sigh), yes this will be completed.

(1/5)

i

It didn't take long (roughly around the time Voyager drifted into the Earth's orbit) for the tumultuous relationship between expectation and reality to put a halt to the dreams of a one, Kathryn Elizabeth Janeway. For seven years, she had rather foolishly anticipated the feeling of happiness when her crew found its way home. However, when the incandescent blue of her home planet loomed larger and bluer in her view screen, she realized that she would give just about anything (Harry Kim's spleen if need-be) for one more slap-happy, perilous week in the Delta Quadrant (1).

What was meant to be a month of debriefing, followed by painstakingly slow efforts to integrate her crew back into life & duty in the Alpha Quadrant, morphed into a streamlined eleven days of Starfleet disguised mania. Briefings lasted hours instead of days, pardons came in the manner of high praise by those who had previously sought to squash the Maquis crew. It seemed that the Federation was so war-ravaged and starved for some good news, that the brass was more willing to spin high carat gold out of what amounted to a battered-tin captain than they were willing to court martial her. Rather than being raked through Starfleet's proverbial mud, the captain of Voyager became the poster child of all the things that had gone right (or, at the very least, all the things that hadn't gone all that wrong) in the post-war society (2).

At least, that had been Starfleet's intention. Such as it was, the reality was that Kathryn's reintegration into her old life was indefinitely halted by a questionable mental state, media cycles, and Fleet PR consultants that didn't know when to quit while they were ahead.

And the gossip?

Well, as always, it was as inventive as a group of pre-war Ferengi attempting to sell depleted dilithium crystals above market price.

Which meant, she had learned how to (mostly) ignore it all.

That didn't mean she didn't attempt to keep well informed.

Serving as the interim commander of Emergency Operations (3), Rear Admiral Janeway had excellent access to Fleet-wide communication channels. This perk of the job helped her keep track of much of the Voyager family; at least, all the ones that wanted to be kept track of (4). For instance, she caught word that Harry would be promoted to Lieutenant, Junior Grade two weeks before he did; that Tuvok would be offered reassignment to a science vessel flying in close proximity to Vulcan for five years; that B'Elanna would be given a position as the assistant research coordinator behind the new slip-stream project once she returned from leave; and that Chakotay's rank would be permanently reinstated, provided he agreed to keep from the borderlands between Federation and Cardassian space.

She had once thought should would have to fight tooth-and-nail for her crew to be recognized for their many achievements, but she learned that they were capable of impressing their worth upon others all on their own.

What Kathryn did not have great access to was the latest relationship scuttlebutt, as it existed and spread through news and gossip feeds she had no time to track. The loss of this source of information — information she had guiltily reveled in as the captain of such a tight-knit crew — left her adrift when it came to keeping up with everyone's growing personal lives. So, when she received the latest and eagerly awaited update from her former pilot, she expected little more than another featured piece on the surprisingly vibrant and still-going-annoyingly-strong relationship between Voyager's former XO and its ex-drone, as well as the attached betting pool on how long it would take to implode (5).

Reality, as she had yet to fully appreciate, was utterly and undeniably delusional.

'Probably won't amount to anything' read Tom's short note.

'Thought you could use a laugh.'

Beneath was the headline, "Behind the Unlikely Affair: Voyager Ensign Explains the Relationship between Kathryn Janeway and her EMH, Mark I."

She promptly spat her coffee on her personal computer.

For once, expectation and reality fell into perfect alignment, as there was, in fact, a great deal of laughter.

ii

Where Tom had gone wrong in his prediction — and where Kathryn should have known he would go wrong — was that the gossip would amount to nothing. Gossip about Kathryn Janeway, the woman who sacrificed nearly everything for the Ocampa and her crew, always amounted to something.

So, the piece blew up. Immediately.

And it persisted. Three months, eight days, and-she-was-really-too-busy-to-keep-track-of-the-hours later, and the topic of her 'affair' with the Doctor just wouldn't go away. It was like the Vidiian Phage, utterly and annoyingly adaptive.

Oh, sure, it didn't make endless headlines and wasn't the most prevalent piece of scuttlebutt to come out of Voyager's return home (that distinct honor went to Seven — who may have quite literally had volumes written about her choice in apparel), but it did appear seemingly at random (6). Perhaps not at random after-all, but whenever her attention was better placed elsewhere.

The reality of it was, Kathryn hadn't even seen much of the Doctor since they docked, except to lend the occasional hand (as well as the occasional stern glare) at the half dozen depositions that acted as precursors to a series of panels that would determine his citizenship status. Essentially, the best and brightest that Starfleet had to offer would argue the question: was the Doctor 'human' enough to be an individual under Federation law. That 'human' was the standard he was being held to spoke more about the Federation than it did the doctor, and explained a good 75% of the stern glares Kathryn had leveled on his behalf.

They were both kept rather busy as of late, and their fledgling tradition of friendly coffee dates seemed to have been left behind in the Delta Quadrant, but even this did not prevent people from wild speculation of the impolite kind.

So, Kathryn Janeway did what she'd always done best in the light of other people's flagrant stupidity: she dug her head into the proverbial sand and made a great show of pretending that she had no idea what was being said about her. Her friends, family, the majority of the Voyager crew that kept in contact - even the Doctor himself — all took a note from her book and kept mum on the subject.

Except for Tom, but that was to be expected (7).

So good was she at ignoring the wild speculation about her "unlikely" and completely false affair with the Doctor, that roughly eight months after her return to the Alpha Quadrant, Kathryn Janeway had all but forgotten that she was the topic of such grossly miscalculated intrigue. By the tenth month, she had forgotten (mostly because, at around that point, approximately every ship assigned to low-risk missions in the Alpha Quadrant had managed to haphazardly drift into gratuitous amounts of life-threatening danger). She had work to do, after all.

Very important work.

See, it was her designated mission as the head of Emergency Operations to make sure that the number of Federation deaths did not exceed the monthly projections she was given by the dozen or so Admirals that outranked her. These numbers, in turn, were determined by a group of people who had probably spent their entire adult lives trying to break the record for digits of pi memorized. The good news was that she had a nearly miraculous tendency to keep said numbers of death so far beneath the projected red line that no one stopped to condemn her for how she was doing it: through an uncanny mixture of intuition and sheer determination, both fueled by coffee and seven years of having acquired a since-then unheard of ability to not get half of a crew (or two, to be technically correct) killed in a volatile region of space.

She literally had no time for intrigue — political or otherwise.

That's why, when the Doctor stopped in for a visit one day, and the enormous din of the cramped Emergency Ops headquarters fell to quiet breathing, Kathryn thought it was because a statistically significant portion of her lower-ranking officers were in the medical profession and were rendered temporarily mute by their awe and/or impolite-curiosity of him (with assumptions like this, he probably wouldn't need to use his ego as a defense mechanism for very much longer).

In reality, they were all trying to hear what was being said while she led him into her private office.

"Doctor! What brings you here?"

If she sounded pleasantly surprised to see him, it was because she was. Hidden in the question, however, was another: How did you manage to gain access of your mobile emitter (8)?

"I had a break in my busy schedule and asked myself who hadn't been graced with my presence in while. So, of course, I thought of you."

When her office doors closed and the glass darkened to afford them privacy, his superior expression faltered and became wary. Before Kathryn could ask, he fingered his collar, pulling it away from his neck to display a narrow strip of metal pinned to the inside.

"Dr. Zimmerman procured the materials through private channels," his tone implied that this had all been done extra-legally and probably amorally, "in order to make me another mobile emitter. He technically owns it, since he used his own resources to create it, so we're running under the assumption that Starfleet has no legal claim."

Stepping closer, Kathryn got a good look at the device and was impressed by its sleek design. She'd met Lewis Zimmerman exactly once, and she hadn't thought the man capable of creating physical pieces of art.

"Does it operate the same?"

"In every way that counts," he flattened the collar, "and in some ways I would prefer very few people become aware of, considering…"

Although her office was sealed off from main Emergency Ops, Kathryn understood his hesitation. People were polite, but the discussion about whether or not he should be classified as a living being was still a highly volatile debate.

"Why don't we go get coffee? I'm three hours due for lunch and can easily clear my afternoon."

That last bit was a flagrant lie. That morning there had been reports of an interplanetary pandemic; one in which they were all still trying to coordinate efforts to solve, but she was willing to delegate her responsibilities for a friend who needed to talk. Also, the illness wasn't even that fatal, just uncomfortable for any species with iron-based blood.

The Doctor went from skeptical to aghast in record time, "It's three in the afternoon! It's not healthy to skip meals, and I know for a fact that you think a balanced breakfast only needs to consist of three servings of coffee! Food. We're getting you food, and you're drinking decaf! Water, even. You're drinking water!"

This last bit was heard by the entirety of Emergency Ops, as Kathryn had made the mistake of opening the door so she could lead him out. Someone was chuckling, and since the room was as still and as silent as a tomb, Kathryn was easily able to triangulate the offender's location and stare them down. Ensign Lowrey, a xenolinguist fresh out of the Academy, shrank in her seat until Kathryn's eyes softened into kind amusement. They had all been slammed with long hours for weeks, she couldn't begrudge anyone who found something to laugh about. Even if that something was her.

Lieutenant Commander Lavek, a startlingly expressive female Vulcan nearly twice Kathryn's age appeared at her side, "I assume by the sudden outburst, that you will be taking a late lunch today?"

Which translated to: I was beginning to suspect that you did not need food to survive. I am pleased to be wrong.

"Close but no. I'll be taking lunch and the entire afternoon off. Do you think you can keep this place in line?"

Kathryn had learned, in her many years of friendship with Tuvok, that carrying an inside joke with a Vulcan was not only possible but a requirement if you wanted to be anything more than someone they frequently tried to condemn for behaving in a perpetually irrational manner. Vulcans enjoyed their humor, even if they could not express it, and seemed to deeply respect those who knew how carefully extract it.

Both of the Vulcan's brows rose, "I believe you are trying to bait me."

"I believe I have succeeded. I'll see you tomorrow."

Commander Lavek folded her hands behind her back, made a soft thoughtful sound, and moved away.

"She reminds me of Vorik," the EMH offered.

He wasn't wrong, although Kathryn was not as familiar with the engineer as the Doctor.

"So," Kathryn clapped her hands together, "Buenos Aires?"

Which really meant: care to get far far away from Starfleet Headquarters?

"Where else?"

iii

It was raining in Buenos Aires when they rematerialized.

The use of the word 'raining' was, to be perfectly honest, a fraudulent understatement. The sky was physically assaulting the city and the surrounding county with heavy belts of water in such a way that, if you were to turn toward the east and stare for a good while, you'd realize that the wind was trying to move the entire ocean inland. This all, of course, made what the transporter operator in San Francisco had said seem like wishful thinking ("They've planned a light thunderstorm. Might want to take an umbrella").

They had brought one, but that didn't stop the two-or-five inches of water on the ground from ricocheting and soaking Kathryn's uniform up to her knees. The Doctor, ever the gentlemen, kept close beside her but let her stand fully under the umbrella. Since the rain seemed to slide right off of him, Kathryn didn't really care to argue with him over this.

"This is perfect," the Doctor shouted over approximately a thousand decibels of Mother Nature punishing her children, "if anyone decided to follow us, they're in for a rude awakening!"

Since it was impossible to see more than three inches past her nose, Kathryn had to agree with him, "Let's find the cafe before we get lost at sea!"

This was much easier said than done. Only after they spent fifteen minutes dodging large projectiles and rain insistent on demonstrating it was aerodynamic enough to fall horizontally were they able to duck into a building with a giant coffee mug painted on a sign hanging above the door. The proprietors, a woman significantly younger than Kathryn and a man that looked like the former's father, stared at them briefly in shock. It was quite clear by their mirroring expressions that they hadn't seen a costumer all day, nor had they expected to.

A puddle formed under Kathryn's boots; the Doctor's uniform remained frustratingly dry.

Finally, the man spoke, his expression going from incredulous shock to bemusement, "Only Starfleet officers would brave this weather for a cup of coffee."

"I find it always tastes better when you have to work for it," as she said this, Kathryn thought of all those times that she had to plead with the replicators on Voyager just so she wouldn't have to try another one of Neelix's just-like-coffee concoctions. Something in the thought made her miss the very thing.

A sort of delightful reproach had filled the eyes of the young woman, "Did your friend stand behind you as you walked?"

Confused for only a moment, Kathryn smiled when she understood. It had been raining sideways, and these two didn't know who they were, "Yes, something like that."

"Elena, take the…"

"Admiral."

"Take the Admiral to the back and get her a fresh pair of clothes. The...

"Doctor," the Doctor spoke up.

"Yes. The doctor may take a seat anywhere in the dining area while he waits."

It took ten minutes for Elena (an outgoing twenty-three year old with a unused doctorates in history, who thought Kathryn would look better in coral than in command red, and since the cafe didn't have access to uniform patterns, replicated her a full set of casual clothes. An understated pink sweater included) to get her situated in the back. It took another five for Kathryn to dry off, warm up, and return to the dining area. It struck her that she hadn't spend this much time outside of a Starfleet capacity it nearly a year.

The Doctor had taken the table farthest from the door in her absence. Hanging over the back of one of the spare chairs was his uniform jacket; something in Kathryn's brain shorted out at the sight of it. If only because for all intents and purposes it should have been impossible, but her expressions remained schooled as she sat, as if seeing the Doctor in his regulation grey tee was a common occurrence.

And then she quirked her brow.

With a satisfied grin, the Doctor extended a closed fist across the table, palm down as if he expected to drop something on its surface. Kathryn got the hint and extended her hand palm up. A moment later, something thin and cool hit her skin and she felt herself nearly gasping at what she saw.

The Doctor's new mobile emitter was not attached to his person.

"I'm guessing this is the something you don't want many people to know about," she said somewhat breathlessly, it had been too long since she had seen a true feat of engineering genius.

"It has a three meter radius," he beamed, "It's not perfect, I honestly don't dare to remove it beyond a couple of feet, but it prevents people from deactivating me by simply plucking it off. And Lewis is making improvements to the design every day."

Elena brought a steaming mug over at this moment and set it in front of Kathryn on the table, and said, "Your sandwich will be ready in only a couple of minutes," before departing again.

"I hope you don't mind. I took the liberty of ordering for you."

"I'll forgive you if the coffee is good," Kathryn blew across the surface of the beverage and took a small sip, it was better than good for being decaffeinated, and so she held the mobile emitter out for him to take.

"So, does this mean that you've been keeping in contact with Dr. Zimmerman?"

"Unfortunately," his tone was haughty, but there was fondness in there (like a child whose parent was a grouch and every-bit hard to get along with but inexplicably endearing despite of all of it), "He was on Earth to petition Starfleet to have custody of my program until the hearings have concluded."

"That's how I got this," he jiggled his emitter.

"Did they give it to him?" Kathryn was curious. Her own petition had been denied, as she had expected it would (on the grounds that she had far too many resources as well as the power to squirrel him away should the verdict not be in his favor).

Would they give it to his creator?

"Reg and Admiral Paris were able to swing it in his favor," unspoken was the sentiment that they had both been swinging many things in the Doctor's favor, "I'm actually due to spend the next couple of months at Jupiter Station. Lewis says it's for surveillance, but…"

"But you think that since he's already made you a mobile emitter, surveillance is just a pretense?"

The Doctor nodded, and they both fell quiet as Elena returned with Kathryn's food, "We have been told that the weather will settle by the evening. They have found the flaw in the weather net and are working to fix it now. You are welcome to wait here until it does."

"Thank you."

When Elena retreated to the counter once more, Kathryn looked under the top slice of bread and spoke softly, "If that's the case, be careful."

"Of course," he scoffed.

She ignored him, "Harry's been working with creating a subspace encryption system that can be used by the old crew in a crunch (9). I don't know if he actually plans on it being used, since it could just be another hobby of his, but I'll tell him to send you what he has. If something happens, don't hesitate to comm me."

Then she took a giant bite of her sandwich, and their conversation became a little less illegal.

iv

The Doctor spent an awful two months in the company of Lewis Zimmerman (the longest he had been away from Earth since Voyager's return); during which, Kathryn became aware that the EMH's creator had given him with a number of new and interesting subroutines as well as a name.

He'd told her much of this over a comm-link while he was in-route to Earth, and the expression on his usually smiling face (at least since Chakotay and Seven took their dating off-world permanently nine months prior), was so devastated that it made Kathryn want to reach for a drink. All she had readily available was stale coffee, so she was forced to wait until his shuttle arrived to pull him into one of the several synthehol establishments the main campus (if people were watching this strange spectacle, she wasn't in the mood to care, the Ferengi had just offered to assist the Starfleet in a rescue mission, and she was considering all the ways in which that mission could and would go wrong).

She was in the middle of something pink in color and fairly bitter in flavor when he dropped the bombshell on her. She choked; he handed her a napkin.

"I'm sorry. Did you say that he named you Greg?"

"Gregory Zimmerman. After his father," he hated it. It was so clear that he hated it that Kathryn wasn't even all that surprised when he reached for her drink and took a long pull from the bottle (she did, however, briefly wonder if there would be a puddle of synthehol on the floor the next time he deactivated, but managed to not say that out loud).

"Oh, this is awful! Peaches aren't supposed to be bitter!" he said this as if it was a personal affront to both him and his senses, "Admiral, how can you drink this?"

She was too busy confused by his choice of words to do anything other than say, "What?"

It took her the next thirty minutes to get anything of sense from him. During that time, she didn't ask for her drink back and he didn't seem inclined to give it. Apparently, Lewis Zimmerman had capitalized on his custodial rights when it had come to the Doctor's (cough, Greg's ) name. As far as she could tell from what was being said, this could not be changed unless he won his hearing.

"And who knows how long I'll be stuck with it. This...debacle...has lasted nearly a year already."

Low and pleading now, "I don't want to be called Greg."

"And I don't want to call you Greg," the fact that she meant it surprised her. In all the years that he'd been activated, she'd expected the Doctor to take a name eventually, but hadn't ever been a willing participant in the search.

One of her small hands came to rest on his shoulder. Although they weren't exactly causing a scene, a number of people were watching, which meant that this little rendezvous would reach Fleet and Federation news before the hour was out. She'd rather utilize the rumors than have anyone know what she was minutes away from suggesting.

As the Doctor continued to drink, Kathryn narrowed her eyes and contemplated his out of character behavior, "What else did Dr. Zimmerman do?"

"A number of experimental subroutines were added to my program. He felt that if I could actually feel, taste and respond to external stimuli in 'appropriate' manners, then the opposition couldn't argue that I was a mere anthropomorphism."

"Uh-huh," she started to ease the bottle from his hand, "Is inebriation among these new subroutines of yours?"

"It. would. seem. so."

"People are watching, I suggest you deactivate it for the moment."

His shoulders tensed briefly, and then the Doctor nodded crisply, "I haven't gotten used to that one yet."

"Well, you've got plenty of time to learn your limits," or set them yourself, but she didn't say that last bit; instead, she turned and scowled at those who were still watching them openly.

"Do I?" he asked. It was melodramatic, but when wasn't he?

"Give me a few days to see what I can do. Certain admirals might be persuaded to...bring a favorable end to this case."

"Subterfuge, Admiral? I thought you were beyond that," his tone suggested anything but.

When her only response was a snort, he continued, "You mean you'll convince them to rule in my favor rather than have the decision based on my merits?" he had the good grace to whisper this.

Kathryn finished the drink off, coughed again because the taste really was as bad as bitter peaches, and slapped his back, "You really have a problem with that?"

"At this point? No. Ask me again in a year, when I have the luxury of being offended."

"Good. In that case, I recommend you not contact me until after the dust has settled."

"Not even with MA'AM?"

"Not even. Greg."

He groaned.

v

Four long days later, Kathryn found herself constructing very important messages to the two admirals who had the most influence in the Doctor's hearings. These were written with as much care as she could afford between several messy emergencies that involved ten ships and the entire world of Risa, which meant that both (informal) communiques were incredibly short and to the point and may or may not have invited both admirals out for drinks. Two days after that, Kathryn had her responses, both of which led her to believe that all she had to do in order to make a difference in Starfleet was become a functioning alcoholic.

vi

The Officers Lounge (née Club) was a throwback to the early Starfleet years. It was a little bit flashy, quite a bit poorly lit, and therefore the perfect location to make all the backroom deals that weren't supposed to keep key (and therefore incredibly bureaucratically clogged) areas of the Federation running smoothly but did so anyway (10).

This seedier side of the Lounge's nature meant that Kathryn rarely went there, which was why she was still stuck in Emergency Ops — almost a year after her miraculous return to the Alpha Quadrant — but nobody was going to tell her that. In fact, she so rarely went there, that the last time she could definitively say she had gone was when her father had taken her and Phoebe when she was six.

From what she could remember, very little had actually changed.

It was fairly late into the evening (some four hours after the official end of her workday but really only twenty minutes since she'd actually called it quits) when Kathryn found herself squeezed between Rear Admirals Montgomery and cCmndhd, the latter of which was a native of an equally difficult to pronounce country and insistently (on the verge of violently) refused to modernize his name to the phonetically accurate Smith so that the universal translators wouldn't suffer a seizure every time someone tried to pronounce it as written (11).

Montgomery, an attractive man approximately her age (and not recently married and divorced as in the case of the curious cCmndhd), was waxing poetic about the financial aid-disputes between a Cardassian ambassador, Garak-someone-or-another, and Lwaxana Troi (something anyone with access to Fleet news could enjoy, in all of its glory and gory detail). This was not what Kathryn had made this trip for, and so she waited impatiently for the opportunity to hijack the conversation.

…which came exactly two and a half hours later, when Montgomery left without preamble to go bother a pretty Captain, who was (supposedly) not under his chain of command. cCmndhd scooted further into Kathryn to make room for Vice Admiral P'ox, a friendly Bolian woman who had been circling their table with near predatory intensity for the last hour, waiting for Montgomery to get bored with his unenthusiastic audience and leave already.

The Vice Admiral said hello by downing and entire shot of something the shade of vicious purple and blinking, "I thought he'd never shut up."

cCmndhd said something that sounded like fifteen consonants strung together in no particular order, scowled when he realized just how far the Starfleet linguists had gone to make sure his native language stayed dead and switched to standard, "He's getting worse."

Kathryn, not very keen on gossip in this form, joined in anyway, "I went to the Academy with him. Trust me. This was better."

Cringes are generally thought of as a universal gesture of physical or emotional distress; all three shared one.

"I was surprised to receive your invitation," P'ox had clearly determined that it was a fine time to get down to business. This meant that another round of drinks was ordered and served — a tall golden beverage that bubbled very, very slowly.

"I assumed that you avoided this hole at all costs," cCmndhd tacitly agreed.

Clearly these two had not looked over her command decision in the Delta Quadrant. If they had, they would have come to the solid conclusion that Kathryn Janeway, though a moral woman, functioned in a gray space. Whatever it took to insure the right conclusion was what she would do.

But she didn't say this; instead, to be polite, Kathryn decided to give the pretty drink a try, was instantly reminded of three week old socks, tried not to gag, and made a mental note to get the recipe to send off to Neelix.

"To be perfectly honest with you," she coughed, "the panels concerning the status of one of my crew are dragging on. For no good reason."

She shot a pointed glare at cCmndhd who had enough grace to wince.

"I want them to end. Sooner rather than later and in his favor."

P'ox considered this, enjoying her sweat-and-athletes-foot flavored beverage as she did so, "As the overseer of this particular set of hearings, I admit I may be able to…impress a certain level of haste upon the proceedings."

cCmndhd grunted, the sound was obviously to cover up a rare smile, "I am fond of your EMH. As the presiding judge and the tie-breaking vote, I can influence certain outcomes."

It was almost too easy. No. It was too easy. Just like sticking it to the Borg Queen with future technology while simultaneously transporting a ship from one end of the galaxy to the other in mere moments. This, of course, meant that she would need to sacrifice herself in the process. Or something similar.

Kathryn groaned, "All right. What do you want in exchange?"

"One more year in Emergency Ops," P'ox slurped the last of the drink — this time Kathryn did gag — "afterward you will lecture at the Academy until it is decided otherwise."

This was longhand for: you will never leave Earth in a professional capacity again.

A life sentence of unequivocal boredom.

"You want me landlocked. Why?"

For a single moment, P'ox looked apologetic, but only for that moment, then she shrugged a uniformed shoulder, "You do not mix well with starships."

There were precisely three minutes where Kathryn tried to argue against this, but the Vice Admiral deftly cut her off with an offer to give her a classified study, carried out by no less than five of the Federation's best mathematical minds, that concluded in no uncertain terms that Kathryn Elizabeth Janeway did not mix well with starships. Apparently there were four proofs to support this, all of which were iron clad, and one of which and produced an entirely new branch of probability theory.

cCmndhd wasn't any less demanding, "I am in a billiards tournament this Wednesday. My partner, Admiral Montgomery, will find himself suffering from a severely sprained wrist that day," (Kathryn did not want to know how cCmndhd planned to make this a reality). "I want to win, which cannot be done with him, since he has terrible aim, so you will be his replacement."

"Done," she agreed emphatically, feeling like a giant loser (but this she could handle, if it meant that the Doctor could face his future as an individual and not a tool and most certainly not as Greg).

Both Admirals smiled at her; Kathryn sighed.

After cCmndhd excused himself, intent on saving the pretty Captain from his long-winded friend, P'ox prepared to leave as well, but not before fixing Kathryn with an uncanny stare.

"May I offer some advice, Kathryn?"

"By all means."

No.

"Perhaps you should be careful. I would hate to see the growing scuttlebutt about you and the hologram to be given any real weight. Holo-addiction has slain the careers of greater men. And women."

"The Doctor is my friend," Kathryn took a great deal of offense to this so-called advice, "a good one at that. My spending time with him and caring about his future is not holo-addiction. It's natural."

P'ox looked as if she could argue the point all night, but came to a silent conclusion and said only, "Your 'friend' will be given the rights of a Federation citizen before the next two months have concluded. If you will not think of your reputation, at least try to protect his. It's a difficult thing, starting out your life being considered another person's relief."

As the Bolian made her exit, Kathryn ordered another drink. And perhaps, much later than she ought to have, she finally asked herself what anyone could have possibly gained from making up an affair.

\- End Notes -

(1) She would even miss the Borg, in that strange way we miss those who have managed to render entire days/weeks/years of our lives into waking nightmares. As if we aren't sure we know who we are and what life means in the absence of their reliable animosity.

(2) Kathryn often speculated, usually in the company of thoughtful Tuvok, that had Benjamin Sisko not gone missing, the outcome of their return would have gone differently. Without its war hero, the Federation had had to settle for its next best thing: a shepherd. Quite unsettlingly, Tuvok always agreed with her logic.

(3) A position meant to help ease her back into taking orders, but really only served in making her want to break every single one of them.

(4) The Equinox crew had spread for sheets to the wind. Last she had heard, Gilmore went private sector after her forced resignation. Meanwhile, Noah Lessing offered his skills and need for penance to charity organizations working with the worse affected by the Dominion War.

(5) Knowing the patient and loyal nature of her best friend as well her protege's fierce loyalty and desire for stability , Kathryn always chose to vote in favor of the couple in question.

(6) A conversational scrap at the bottom of social repertoires; gossip that no one admitted to believing when pressed, but talked about anyway when they didn't know what to say to one another aside from, 'the weather is quite lovely today' despite the apparent failure in the weather net.

(7) And now that she thought of it, Tuvok had once said, "It is not the most unfortunate, baseless rumor about your actions to be perpetuated since our return, nor would it be the worst truth." Which was entirely true: apparently there was a well-circulated conspiracy theory that she was, in fact, the real Borg Queen.

(8) The subject of his mobile emitter was one of great umbrage to the Doctor. Starfleet, through legalistic maneuvering, had declared that the artifact was not the EMH's possession. That it had been acquired via 'temporal shenanigans' only solidified Starfleet's case for custody of the technology. The Doctor had sense been sequestered — in rotation — at Starfleet Medical, Jupiter Station, and the Pathfinder headquarters.

(9) It was a fairly complex system that could be broken (as almost all could), but not easily and certainly not quickly enough for anyone to do anything about it. According to Harry, all he needed to do know was decide on the encryption algorithms. She refrained from mentioning that Harry and called it MA'AM.

(10) There was nothing like some really good, really real alcohol to make a group of fundamentally different and inherently prideful people buckle down and get the fine print ironed out.

(11) That the constructed language of the nation of Qwghlmian (a dreary place somewhere in the vicinity of Great Britain, founded in 2063 by the few dozen or so rabid fans of a long-winded novelist who wrote about the place in great length before it actually existed*) was even human in origin had baffled Kathryn for as long as she'd known that it was one of those dead languages (d. 2109) that had been revived for absolutely no good reason.


	2. ii

(2/5)

i

Admiral cCmndhd (whose first name was spelled suspiciously like the entire last third of the English alphabet but was pronounced exactly like John) was a surprisingly good conversationalist when the universal translators weren't choking on his native language. This made helping him defeat a pair of blank-faced Vulcan dignitaries at billiards less painful than it rightfully should have been (and left Kathryn suspecting that James Montgomery had sprained his wrist not because John wanted to win but because he didn't want to fall asleep during the match).

"They'd be better off playing poker," Kathryn said conspiratorially as she prepared to put the finishing touches on the last game of 8-balls. It had just started, but she was certain that she could dispatch with it quickly enough.

John, who had a deft hand at wry expressions, looked down at her from his fairly impressive height and twisted his thin lips, "Vulcan's don't gamble."

"Noooo, but they could logic themselves into a game of Dabo if they were so inclined."

"Fair point, but I'll wager that they are terrible at poker."

A quick look at their competition revealed that both men were staring at them with matching, thinly-veiled expressions of annoyance,.

Kathryn decided not to take him up on that bet, "They'd all have the same tell, wouldn't they?"

John lifted his brow dramatically, and she was forced to admit to herself that she had to stifle her laughter. When she turned to approach the table, it was with a sly smirk on her face, "Have you gentlemen been made aware of the fact that I'm the reigning champion of 8-ball in not only one quadrant of the galaxy but two?"

Several minutes later, John and Kathryn were seated at the bar. This was one of those privately owned establishments that was small, filled with real smoke, and likely kept running by the interests of a few Ferengi holdouts (1). Located in the Carpathian Mountains, it had taken two transports to reach (and more than a fair share of could-be-empty threats). The woman standing behind the counter was human, but she had a distinctly keen sense of profiteering, which meant that both Starfleet Admirals (despite their civilian garb) were recognized immediately for what they were and offered a round of congratulatory drinks on the house. The fact that they had quite a nice sum of winning credits to split between them and could be easily persuaded to buy more alcohol had helped as well.

"To the best pool player in this Quadrant and the next," John held his glass slightly aloft; Kathryn clinked hers against it, relieved that he hadn't so much as announced it loudly as stated it in a plain tone while barely looking away from the bar.

"I was thinking of taking on the Beta Quadrant next. I wonder if the Romulans have better intuition."

She herself was leaning against her elbows, wondering what in the world the admiral sitting beside her had up his sleeve. So far, they had kept the conversation shallow but friendly, and he had given no indication that her presence here was anything more than to give him a sure win (not that she was inclined to believe this), but he had been the one to offer the second round of drinks when it came time to order them.

"I know for a fact that they are," despite his coy smile, he did not enumerate (he reminded her of Mark in many ways, sly but kind, a man of many words but not entirely inclined to share them), which brought Kathryn to her next statement.

"I'm not entirely convinced that you brought me here to win a game of pool, John." Kathryn had taken to just saying John as if it were spelled that way, in order to avoid the embarrassment of choking on her own tongue.

"That's because I didn't."

"All right," she spoke slowly, "is this something I'm going to regret? Because if it is, I'm going to need more alcohol?"

This time John did smile, and indicated with his drink that they should get a more private booth (it was code for: I think the bartender is a spy, probably for the Ferengi or the Breen or Starfleet, and she's very clearly listening to us and I may or may not have a personal dampening field generator in my pocket).

"Not in so many words."

Kathryn scooped up her pálinka and followed him away from the bar, speaking softly, "This doesn't have anything to do with the hearings, does it?"

"Everything," he spoke quickly over his shoulder, ushering her into one of the booths before settling in opposite of her, "but I felt that we should discuss it out of earshot of P'ox and her people."

At her critical expression, he continued, his accent thickening to the point that he sounded Welsh, "P'ox is polite and actually quite nice, but she has her own agenda. The same as me, and the same as you. Yours and mine, they're a little more compatible with one another than they are with hers. In fact, ours run pretty well parallel, whereas with P'ox's..."

"They run at counter purposes," Kathryn finished, and he nodded while making a sound akin to a starship ricocheting off of a planet's surface.

"Do you think that bartender is one of her informants?"

John scrunched his nose, "Nah. At worst, she's one of Paris'." "Owen?"

"Especially him."

Kathryn shook her head, "Look. I don't know anyone's agenda let alone my own. Until a week ago, it was to get out of Emergency Ops and on a mission, any mission (even if it meant taking shifts on a Bajoran freighter) that got me off of this planet. That didn't work, and I've been forced to start building a new one from the bottom up."

John waved his hand at her, not dismissively but in disagreement, "No. Keep your old one. It was good, and we can work with that."

"I don't see how…"

"You made an unfair agreement with the Vice Admiral last week, and we'll have to work on a way to get you out of it. Well, not wholly unfair because she does control the pacing of the hearings and your agreement saw that it was placed on my docket next month, but unfair enough because the conclusion of that hearing was already determined months, perhaps even years, ago."

"Are you telling me…"

"That P'ox purposefully put off the ruling until you came to her directly? Yes."

"Why?"

At this point, John took a fairly hefty drink and rubbed at the emerging stubble on one of his cheeks. He seemed to be thinking of the correct way to approach this without it coming out as blatant treason and came to the conclusion that this was impossible but-to-hell-with-it-anyway:

"I suspect you've already done your research. During the war very few people outranked her in terms of intelligence clearance regarding the Delta Quadrant, and since the war those numbers have whittled away to only three. Your Admiral Paris is one, but he has no control over what happens internally, Admiral Ross rounds it to two, but he's so busy dealing with the fallout of Deep Space Nine that he couldn't be damned with your career. The last is... I'll give you two guesses; I'll even say that the first doesn't count."

"Admiral Nechayev," her response was so immediate that his lips quirked upward in a sort of out-of-place glee.

"Damn," Kathryn hissed, "I'd forgotten that they promoted her to Full Admiral."

"Well deserved, too, but the rumors have it that she's been placed in charge of keeping you in line. It's a full time job, if I've heard it correctly"

Kathryn snorted, "Yeah, and the rumors also have it that I'm in some sort of sordid affair with the Doctor."

There was a moment of silence as John let her think about that one. He sat, watching her with a clinical interest, until finally he stated, "And who do you think is behind those?"

"I refuse to believe that…"

"You willingly agreed to remain landlocked for the duration of your career to ensure that he was granted citizenship."

"I would do nothing less for any member of my crew."

"You are not being foolishly accused of having an affair with any of those other members. Kathryn," he used her first name to prevent her from cutting him off:

"You have not returned to a Federation of high moral standing. Everything has become a very unfashionable shade of dark grey since the war. It was recognized that your accomplishments could bring civilian faith back into Starfleet, but very few people at the top want to give you any real power. They've been scrambling to create ways to naturally undermine you since they realized Voyager was going to make it back in one piece."

That was all well and good, and on some levels made some sort of convoluted sense (Kathryn had to admit, though, that if they wanted to undermine her all they needed to do was flaunt the word Equinox to the press, not an affair. Unless they weren't trying to paint her as a homicidal maverick so much as make her look silly). That being said, there was one thing that just didn't make any sort of sense at all:

"You're only a Rear Admiral, the same as me. How do you know all of this?"

"Ah," John finished his drink, "its mostly well educated conjecture, and ah, I've found myself owing a few favors to Owen Paris, you see. He's really quite fond of you and hates what is happening, but has very few means of his own to stop it. I'm to keep your rank treading water."

"What's in it for you?"

"A promotion, for starters," he admitted, "but also a sense of fairness. I'm a sucker for it, it gives meaning to my life," he deadpanned, and Kathryn couldn't help but smile softly.

In response, he scowled at what appeared to be two cadets out after curfew before continuing, "When I said I was fond of your EMH, I wasn't lying, and I quite like you. You faced the impossible task of bringing your crew home to their families and succeeded, with more grace than most and with the majority of your sanity where it should be."

"Thanks."

"Owen has made it clear that the brass is punishing you for the actions of a version of you that no longer exists, while it's giving accolades to captains and admirals who did rather unspeakable things in the name of war. I'm a judge at heart, and I find it absolutely intolerable when the scales aren't balanced."

"All right," Kathryn conceded, sipping at her own drink, "I'll believe you. For now."

"Good. That's good. I'd like to have dinner next week to discuss this further. It'll have to be in public because the tabloids have been running photos of you and the EMH sitting cozily at a cafe and a bar. It'll do you some good to be seen in a social setting with someone else, specifically of your preferred gender."

Kathryn cursed internally, but externally her face was a mask of careful indifference, "Even if that someone else is the ruling judge in the Doctor's hearings?"

John waved his hand again, "Those are closed due to the nature of the ruling having already been decided. No one has access to the names of the presiding judges without a steep clearance. So steep that you sent a message to P'ox last week by even knowing that I was on the final panel."

"Really?"

"Really. The only people who will know we're actually in cahoots are Owen, P'ox and Nechayev, which is a good thing. Mostly. It's still two-to-one, there, and we're just the puppets dancing on strings."

"As puppets, what can we accomplish, exactly?"

"Probably nothing, but it should be fun regardless."

"Cheers," Kathryn said rather cheerlessly, slammed back her drink, and thought of how ridiculously convoluted Starfleet had become in her absence.

John flagged the attention of the nosy bartender and ordered another round.

ii

Two months, fifteen days and a handful of hours later, Kathryn found herself in the largest crisis situation since her return to the Alpha Quadrant:

That being the one year reunion gala celebrating the return of Voyager to the Alpha Quadrant, an event that approximately 15% of her former crew actually looked forward to. The other 85% saw it for what it was (a massive publicity stunt for Starfleet); or in the case of Mortimer Harren, they were entirely too misanthropic to care about seeing everyone again. Nevertheless, the small venue on the San Francisco campus was brimming full of 'The Voyagers' a horrible moniker bestowed upon her old crew by the media, and she found herself avoiding not one but ten undercover reporters (2).

"Admiral!"

Kathryn quickly swallowed her generous sip of wine and declared, "Oh thank god," at the site of Tom Paris making his way over to her, a massive cat-eat-the-canary grin on his face.

She'd feared that he would be a guest she didn't recognize or someone looking for a quote to publish.

"Haven't seen anyone this happy to see me in a while," he teased, boyish eyes alight with good humor.

He's having fun - Kathryn thought to herself incredulously before reclassifying him as one of the 15%, "My date's been usurped by Tuvok, and I've spent the last half hour avoiding ham-handed attempts by journalists to manufacture a scandal. You could conscript me to another round with Chaotica, and I'd still find it more appealing than this."

Tom's eyes twinkled a bit (in the way that they were always wont to do) as he held a finger to his lips and shhh'ed her in an exaggerated manner. Kathryn quirked a nonplussed brow and gestured for him to get on with it.

"Oh, all right," he rubbed his hands together as if conspiring with her, "I've been given the mission to encourage you to participate in the festivities."

"Really?"

"Yes!" He gave her a solid thwack on the back, "So stop standing here looking sour. Go forth. Mingle. Pilot's orders."

Kathryn gave him a mock solute, an Aye aye, and proceeded to remain right where she was standing.

Tom groaned, "Oh come on, Captain! Admiral! Kathryn! One of those three has to be right, maybe even two, don't think I don't notice the smile you're trying to hide. Seven's tormenting a member of the press corp (and if I'm not mistaken, she's doing it on purpose), Chakotay's boring B'Elanna with anthropology, and the Doc has been stealing glances this way for the last hour. You have a proverbial buffet of choices! I'd offer myself, but I promised Harry I'd rescue him from one of the twins in...two minutes ago. Excuse me."

A cursory glance around the hall told Kathryn that no one had paid witness to that excessive display of energy (even for Tom Paris) and that everyone was doing exactly what he said they were. Another glance told her that Tuvok had introduced John to T'Pel (she made a mental note to ask her friend how deeply he thought her association with the admiral went), that Tom had thrown a theatrical arm around Harry's shoulder, and that the Doctor was doing an awful job at hiding the fact that he was drifting slowly in her general direction.

She turned to greet him, "Greg."

The Doctor winced, "You did that on purpose."

"I haven't been told what name you settled on," she replied glibly, taking the time to sip from the rest of her wine.

"Doctor, for now."

"You had your name legally changed to Doctor?"

"For now," he batted at one of the streamers that had made its way down from the ceiling, sending it into Kathryn's drink.

She pursed her lips as she fished it out, "I got your correspondence."

This time his wince was less pronounced but gave the impression that she'd slapped him, "I wanted to talk with you about that, actually."

"Talk?"

His shoulders drooped, "I meant apologize."

"Whatever for?" it was cruel, she knew, to string this out more than necessary. After all, Kathyrn had only been a little put off by what he had implied between the lines of his thank you note for her participation in the outcome of his trial.

His face twisted in a way that made her fear that his imaging processors had been corrupted and leaned toward her, "I implied that you prostituted yourself on my behalf!"

"In so many words I did" she whispered (not very softly) back, "but not in the way you suspected," and I happen to appreciate John's company, thankyouverymuch, she didn't add.

"What does that mean?"

"In short, I'm currently at the whim of a Bolian. Admiral cCmndhd and I are simply spending time together to make her uncomfortable. It's working, so far as I can tell; she's switched out my best aide for someone in her office."

Kathryn leaned into him, a perplexed furrow in her brow, "Tell me something…"

Thoroughly confused by the sudden change in her tone, the Doctor frowned, "What?"

"Does Tuvok look like he's trying to intimidate my date?"

The EMH craned his neck a little (it really wasn't her imagination, his imaging processors were malfunctioning, as demonstrated by the 170-degree swivel of his head), spying openly, "On a scale of zero to ten, I'd say he's reached the maximum threshold of Vulcan behavior."

Kathryn set down her drink and made to move, "That's what I'm afraid of. Come with me."

The Doctor jumped and immediately began trailing behind her, "I'm sure he's only concerned about...don't glare at me like that, the man spent seven years on your bridge shooting at various alien lifeforms for you."

A soft chuckle cut off their approach, and Kathryn turned in time to see Chakotay extend another glass of wine to her (taking her now empty one in his free hand), "Don't worry, I overheard the conversation on the way over. Admiral cCmndhd is out-Vulcaning our Vulcan."

Shoulder's sagging in relief, Kathryn accepted the drink, "What were they saying?"

"I believe Tuvok was pondering the likelihood that 'Misters Kim and Paris would attempt their haphazardly organized and poorly concealed scheme to erupt a dampening field around the hall within the next hour.' Admiral cCmndhd has been insisting that it has already happened, since the undercover reporters have been complaining about their ineffectual devices for the last hour and a half. T'Pel doesn't have the heart to tell Tuvok that we saw the Admiral in the bushes not fifteen minutes ago, making sure said dampening field was still functioning."

With an expression that didn't know whether to be amused or confused, Kathryn managed a, "Really?"

"I'm not sure if I'm more concerned by the fact that Tuvok is participating in gossip or that Seven not only allowed herself to be included in the scheme but re-organized half of it to increase its probability of success," at this moment, Chakotay spotted Doctor as the latter attempted to sneak away and offered a genuine smile, "Hello and congratulations!"

The Doctor puffed out his chest and beamed, "Thank you, Captain. And congratulations to you! Voyager is in good hands. But if you two will excuse me, I left my date by the hors d'oeuvres."

As he walked away, the Admiral and Captain made and held bemused eye contact, the former mouthing, "Date?" in an exaggerated manner.

Across the room an ice sculpture toppled over, and Kathryn thought she heard three of her old crewmen drunkenly singing Klingon opera. After locating the scene with her eyes, she turned backed to Chakotay, grabbed his arm and smiled. For the first time in nearly a decade, she felt herself again.

"I think I'm going to go enjoy myself now."

His friendly grin was encouraging.

On her way, she caught sight of Seven, the tall blonde clearly done intellectually eviscerating whichever member of the press had been foolish enough to ask her 'who' she was wearing, and made mind. If nothing else, she'd at least leave the evening having made a real friend out of her protégée.

"Seven," she linked her arm through the other woman's, "let me introduce you to an Alpha Quadrant tradition. Spiked punch."

The blonde looked more receptive than Kathryn could have hoped given her past experience with alcohol, "Proceed."

iii

Several months passed before word reached her that the Doctor had petitioned to be granted civilian status. The note telling her came from Ccmndhd's office. A literal note. Transported to her desk while she's replicating her third morning coffee (eighth, if you considered the five she had downed while working through the night to coordinate relief to colonies ravaged by ion storms). Kathryn only noticed it was there when she went to access the report submitted by Lavek the evening before.

She blinked her weary eyes and worked hard to prevent them from crossing.

The note read:

'No legal grounds to deny. I'm sorry.'

From his penmanship, Kathryn could tell that if he didn't send notes via back-dooring the transporter system often, he made use of longhand elsewhere. Still, the neat script did nothing to help her understand what he meant, only that he only meant for her to know something.

After gulping down and additional good portion of her coffee, replicating a pen, and flipping the equally replicated paper John sent her over, Kathryn scrawled a sloppy reply:

'I know less than you think I do. Mind enlightening me?'

To her horror, the admiral's immediate response was to transport a hard copy of a confidential case file onto her mug. Kathryn only managed to snatch the stack up and toss it to the far side of her desk before her coffee could topple off the edge with the paper on it, but she could not actually prevent the coffee from spilling over onto the floor.

She swore (somewhere in the growing litany of it was a disgruntled "what is it with this guy") and pressed her palms into her eyes while attempting to count to ten. By five, the file was shoved into a desk compartment for later viewing. By eight, she had lifted herself to replicate a rag (there was no sense in leaving the cleaning to crewmen). Ten never came, as a chirp at her office door let her know that Lavek was there to steal her attention away to the Beta Quadrant melee that had been threatening to erupt for three days now (3).

Six hours later, she was frightening pedestrians as she stalked an intricate pattern through San Francisco alleyways. Having been awake for nearly sixty hours, her pallor and scowl gave the impression to anyone around enough to see her that the entirety of the Federation would crumble if happy civilians did. not. scramble. to. get. out. of. her. way. Naturally, they obliged; she didn't seem to notice.

On the inside, she felt that she was perfectly calm and behaving in a reasonable manner. Someone she had spent a great deal of effort and political capital (something she had been learning meant everything in the Alpha Quadrant) helping, had completely pulled the wool over her eyes. Kathryn thought she deserved more than a card after the fact, something Doctor surely would have done had John not broken two dozen laws and another couple dozen regulations.

It wasn't until she jammed her finger while ringing the chime that she began to reevaluate that assessment, and by the time the Doctor triggered the release to allow her to enter, she was no more ready to demand to know what he was thinking that she was ready to run a marathon. Instead, she let out a massive yawn (much to her chagrin) and said,

"Your petition for civilian status is going to be granted."

The hologram in question was wearing an apron (of all things) over his uniform and managed to have the foresight to appear chagrined, "Oh. You heard about that?"

She thrust the stack of papers in his general direction, barely registering that he had taken them from her, before she drifted idly toward his love-seat, legs feeling like lead, "The person responsible for informing me had assumed I already knew. Considering I derailed my immediate career aspirations of moving beyond cleaning up after Starfleet for you, I can see why they would have."

Whether the Doctor's eyebrows darted up his forehead because of the candor of her words or because the way in which she sat down resembled carefully coordinated falling, Kathryn wasn't certain.

She quirked an eyebrow in return.

The Doctor relented, he eyes falling to the file in his hand, "Why is this so large?"

Toying with the idea of kicking off her boots, but then thinking better of it (even exhausted, she was aware that the Doctor was unlikely cooking for himself but rather for impending company), Kathryn pinched the bridge of her nose, "It's mostly your service record. Starfleet isn't willing to risk fighting this and allowing it to go public. In fact, they have agreed to compensate you for eight years of service as a contracted civilian. "

"Oh," the Doctor then began what could only be described as a monologue on how wonderful it was that Starfleet finally understood the work he had done over the years (with nearly double the credit-compensation he had expected, no less) in a tone that suggested he was actually quite saddened (or was that offended, Kathryn couldn't tell) that they were not fighting to keep him around. Surely he was the best doctor they had, after all and…

Before he could get more than a minute and a half into the speech, Kathryn began to snore.

iv

Admiral cCmndhd personally delivered her a very stiff drink the next morning. Why he did so became apparent only later, when Tom forwarded her the latest photos from the tabloids.

When the morning settled into noon, Kathryn returned to her office to the sight of traditionally baked coffee cake, a hypospray loaded with a sleeping aid supplement, and a small succulent carefully chosen by someone who could not expect her to remember to keep a more needy plant alive. She suspected she knew who it was from, and decided she might forgive him, at the very least for allowing her to sleep until morning.

Kathryn would have to consider forgiving him for the rest.

\- End Notes -

(1) Perhaps one of the greatest upsets of the post-war predictions was how easily the Ferengi Alliance was able to make the transition from a purely capitalistic society to that of socialism. Rather than jail political dissidents, Grand Nagus Rom had simply let them be. With less competition, many of the old profiteers had turned into robber barons, creating small niche markets on those planets in the Federation that had declared themselves currency free. Earth being one.

(2) Maybe she was only being paranoid, but Kathryn had originally felt that having the entirety of the Voyager crew converge on a single location for the celebration was not the brightest decision to come out of Starfleet headquarters. That was, of course, until John snuck her a copy of the classified study carried out by the same five mathematical geniuses that had determined she and starships were not compatible. The report had concluded that the likelihood of disaster occurring was 4%, with a 3% margin of error.

(3) Picard, despite his renowned diplomacy, had an unparalleled knack for pulling the Alpha Quadrant into Romulan shenanigans. This time it had to do with ships disappearing around the neutral zone, something the Romulans declared the doing of Starfleet — in this case, specifically, Picard. Naturally, Picard thought they were talking out of their posteriors. At least, that's what she gathered after their last subspace comm-link.


	3. iii

(3/5)

i

Somewhere just beyond the farthest reaches of the Romulan Empire, a ship blinked into existence.

English and linguistic scholars would argue with physicists and philosophers about the merits of the previous sentence (1). There was one thing that no one would ever argue over (aside from those five statistical geniuses, who would go on to create a nasty schism in the field of mathematics between the three who always knew that Kathryn Janeway wasn't the correct variable to include in their equations all along, and the two who couldn't figure out why all of their calculations regarding Kathryn Janeway and starships invariably came out to one). It was a fact that, if brought up in conversation, would lead to approximately eight minutes of everyone present nodding at one another because, 'Yeah, that makes perfect sense.'

This was the small piece of information that this not-new-ship-in-a-new-place had the word 'Voyager' printed on its outer hull in utilitarian font.

ii

At precisely 0300 hours on what was meant to be Kathryn's last day in Emergency Ops, a private subspace message pinged on the computer near her bed. Because that particular ping could have woken the dead (and because she had been staring at the ceiling for the last four hours pretending that this was all a dream, really, she was back in the Delta Quadrant living a meaningful existence) it only had to go off once before the message was received in person.

It read,

_'Qjwlamia twiaghlm yhal.'_

The words were something that, to just about anyone else, would look like the English language had been shoved into a blender (2). To Kathryn, they looked like a key to an encrypted message she would receive at some point in the next twenty-four hour day cycle. In a fit of forward thinking, Kathryn had worked with B'Elanna to develop a replication file that would produced traditional pens and paper (due to John's habit of long-hand communication) whenever needed. Therefore, Kathryn had several available to jot down the key before it vanished into the background radiation of the universe.

As with many of these short transmissions she had received in the past two months (mostly from Harry and Tom and on occasion the Doctor checking in) Kathryn knew that the best way to prepare for the incoming message was to navigate one of the twelve books on the Qwghlmian language she had gotten under the pretense of wanting to impress John. John (who was someone that was usually not impressed as well as someone who knew his friend well enough to know that wanting to impress others wasn't a prominent trait of hers) played along with the farce anyway. This was easier said than done, because Qwghlmian was as frustrating to read as it was to hear the universal translators butcher.

"It's phoneme, morpheme, and syntax are what you would probably call, 'unsound,'" John had warned her once, when she told him she was thinking of taking up the language as a hobby (he'd been kind enough to only look a great deal skeptical at her use of the word hobby instead of entirely unconvinced).

What he meant by unsound was that the fans who had recreated it centuries ago had done a rather poor job of it, and that its recent status as a formerly dead language had done the initial botched construction of Qwghlmian no favors whatsoever. "Qjwlamia twiaghlm yhal" could mean one thing written down but ten when spoken or vice versa or each word might mean the exact same thing depending on the use of dialects. Kathryn had been surprised to learn that enough people had been able to speak this at one point in order to produce dialects. John had responded with an explanation that the dialects formed because people had never really known how to speak it to one another with it in the first place.

That was the point.

Harry had apparently taken one look at cCmndhd's name after weeks of trying to figure out just who Kathryn had mentioned in passing once ("John Smith doesn't exist!" he'd complained loudly to no one once, before thinking to search the name in the database phonetically). An afternoon trying to understand the features of the language had convinced the Lieutenant Junior Rank that he had found the perfect means of constructing the encryption algorithms for MA'AM.

He had been right; it was now a year after its completion, and the leading intelligence officers in the Federation, Klingon Empire, Romulan Empire, and Cardassian...ruins, still had no idea if Kathryn Janeway was simply swapping mediocre anecdotes and jokes with members of her previous crew or if they were all somehow plotting a coup/war/xenocide/Borg Invasion (3).

After what could have been several pints of coffee or several pots (she never counted anymore), Kathryn figured out how to translate the Qwghlmian key, which produced a riddle she had to solve and translate back into Qwghlmian in order to decode the impending message.

What she could not count in cups of coffee, she could in time. It was 0900 hours when she solved the key under the guise of writing a report at her desk in Emergency Ops. It was 1120 hours when she received an encrypted message via a secure subspace line Seven of Nine of all people had agreed to develop (which didn't so much as decay the message if anyone attempted to hack it without access to the first word of the translated key but jumbled up the letters even more than they already appeared to be). It was 1201 hours when the first reports of Voyager's disappearance made their way to Emergency Ops and 1204 hours when Kathryn finished converting her private message into a more readable format.

It said,

'Nobody puts Aunt Kathy in a corner (4).'

The flood of reports pretty much all said,

"Voyager has vanished."

The again was left unspoken.

Kathryn, for her part, accepted this incoming information with about as much shock as someone who was being told by a meteorologist, while standing in a thunderstorm, that there was a chance of scattered showers. Voyager has vanished had been the encryption key Q Junior had made her work out, after all. Only, it had looked more like someone had vomited the letters in no reasonable order when she was done translating it.

iii

Several things happened in the weeks following the second Voyager disappearance. The first was that the admiralty put Kathryn in front of a number of reporters and their holo-cameras whenever they had the opportunity, as if to say, 'Look, we did our best to keep this from happening again. We kept her off that ship, didn't we?'

Her improvised speeches were full of genuine heartfelt sympathies and support directed at the families of those aboard the vessel, subtle underhanded comments directed at Starfleet Command for thinking that this didn't have anything to do with her, and the unspoken but generally well received statement, 'That's what you get for naming a starship Voyager.'

The second was that some enterprising young journalist went through the publicly available crew manifest and did an exposé on those who had been in the original, ill-fated mission to the badlands. So, once again, the faces of Tom and Chakotay as well as Jenny Delaney were splashed all over the media feeds (5). Kathryn did her best to avoid being blackmailed into providing information, and for the most part succeeded admirably at it (commenting only once after it had been intimated to her that B'Elanna had punched the journalist in question in the jaw with a wry, 'That's all she did? (6)'.

In the third week of the second Voyager disappearance, Owen Paris made his move. By tugging on the appropriate strings and calling in all the right favors, he plucked Kathryn out of her extended assignment at Emergency Ops. Her official post as the new commanding officer of the Pathfinder Project was certainly not as sexy as being granted unlimited access to the warp speeds necessary to track down her ship, but something told her that she wouldn't be waiting long for the answers she needed. Knowing the Q as she did, their omnipotence was greater than everything but their need to brag about it.

Meanwhile, the only individuals she told about Junior's involvement were those with access to Qwghlmian-to-Standard dictionaries. Although the Q involved would provide some measure of comfort, it was effectively a dead-end lead. Voyager could be anywhere. The size of a fruit fly orbiting debris? The Andromeda galaxy? 1952?

Seven had been the first to respond with, "I will focus my attention on subspace."

Which Kathryn had taken to mean: leave the physics to me.

In the fourth week, B'Elanna sent Kathryn what amounted to an encrypted technical manual regarding the more classified aspects of the changes made to Voyager's engines since their return: namely prototype slipstream technology that they had known all along was on board but had to pretend they didn't. The more important sections had been flagged by the engineer and annotated with projected lengths of time of travel to the Alpha Quadrant from various locations in the galaxy (assuming they were in the same time) with that drive. The odds looked good that if Q left them somewhere like the far-side of the Gamma Quadrant, Chakotay could get everyone home before Miral hit adulthood (provided they ignored the fact that the Gamma Quadrant wasn't exactly prime real-estate at the moment).

In the eighth week, Kathryn was introduced to two of the five mathematicians whose findings had grounded her. It was very hush-hush, in the sort of way that stank of involvement from P'ox. Knowing that whatever was said to them would make it back to the Bolian, she decided to have some fun at their expense. This meant that by the end of their discussion over stale, poorly replicated coffee regarding their latest calculations involving Voyager, Kathryn had them convinced that all of their calculations were correct: if she so much as sneezed in the vicinity of a shuttle-craft, half of the Federation would fall into ruin.

When sixteen weeks passed with no other word from Junior and no headway in locating Voyager in the night sky, she grew certain that they were going to be in this for another long haul. Whatever the Q had up their sleeve, it probably actually meant something in the grand scheme of something.

Approximately an hour after she had this thought, Kathryn received a MA'AM communique from somewhere in the Romulan Empire (she knew it was Romulan because the individual who had sent it thought that she would be fooled by the distinctly Klingon signature to the private subspace channel. Given that the Klingon's were notoriously bad at subterfuge, Kathryn took this lie as a good-nature sign of disrespect, the best type of disrespect the Romulans had to offer).

It was a set of coordinates just beyond the farthest edges of the Empire.

Three days after this, Kathryn, Harry, and Seven went missing from their posts.

Four months after that, the Doctor failed to arrive at Jupiter Station (7).

iv

"I like cheese."

Harry gave an expression that approached bemusement; Seven scowled, "That is not what I said; the universal translators have failed to register the intonation of my words again."

From the opposite side of the small mess hall of the Tholian cargo-transport, Kathryn could not find it within herself to tell the ex-Drone that everyone failed to register the intonation of her words, and that at any given point in time she only ever had one: boredom.

Instead, she replicated a mug of raktajino in silence. There was no need to set the grounds for an argument in a situation that was already tense with uncertainty.

The three had been traveling together for over four months, circumventing their way through the Federation, into Klingon space, and finally to the edges of the Klingon Empire. While it was always difficult to hide who they were, cleverness and a bit of hero-worship had gone a very long way to prevent both the press and Starfleet from having a clear picture of what their flight plan really was. Sure, the occasional report of their adventures made its way to the tabloids, but it was never enough to truly threaten their mission of getting to the coordinates sent to them by whatever Romulan had a plan up their sleeve.

It hadn't been Kathryn's intentions to bring along company. Harry and Seven had very bright futures ahead of them, with equally bright accomplishments to share with the people of the Federation. They had very little business tarnishing that by going on a fool's-errand with their once-captain (their once-captain who was now an admiral grounded by Starfleet). At least, that is what she had told herself before they had, on many occasions, proven their presence was necessary to make this fools'-errand work.

"Try saying it again, but this time round out and lift at the beginning and end of each word," Harry instructed, ever patient and not looking as if he enjoyed Seven's failure. Four months of intense study and the ex-Drone continued to fail at speaking the language of barely more than a 100 (herself included).

Seven obliged, "Hello, how are you?"

"You did it! Fantastic!" Harry cheered, looking over to Kathryn in very clear excitement on his otherwise tired features. Breaking the law did such horrible things to his complexion.

She rewarded him with a smile; it took so much energy to teach Seven. It suited him well (in that it kept him from going mad over what was likely to be a very dismal future).

Kathryn certainly wasn't fluent in Qwghlmian, at least not to the extent as her once-ensign, but she knew enough to answer Seven's question, "I think I've had enough practice for the day."

"I concur," said Seven in standard.

Dressed in civilian clothing and restricted to quarters or the public messes, there was at once too little and too much to do aboard their myriad of transports. With no duties, their days were filled with discussions regarding the potential whereabouts of Voyager, the potential punishments waiting for them on Earth, as well as the likelihood of Romulan ill-intent regarding the coordinates delivered. At the same time, their days were filled with silence and brooding and tension. They weren't used to traveling with one another in this way (without a clear command structure, and without a Kathryn Janeway eager to establish one).

The fact that there was very little exploration too, just clear determination to reach the destination of choice, did not help. Odd civilizations willing to increase their adrenaline by promising to kill them were never engaged, beautiful nebulae or anomalies where avoided out of practicality, and there was a depressing lack of scientific curiosity among captains manning the transports and ships they boarded.

Concern over the crew aboard Voyager and the lack of trust in the Q to protect them from danger often drove Harry into frenetic panic and Seven into a maudlin silence. It pained Kathryn to know that her friend had decided to explore the full spectrum of human emotion only to be quickly given the chance to do just that.

"Where do you think the Doctor has run off too?"

This was Harry's fourth favorite topic of conversation (8). Ever since the tabloids had accused Kathryn and her erstwhile EMH of running off on a romantic vacation, the comm's officer had been trying to locate the hologram in question. The Doctor certainly wasn't with them, and nothing in the last nine years had given any indication that his old captain and the chief medical officer aboard Voyager had actually had an affair. Had someone managed to filch his program, and in their haste to find the lost ship, they were willfully neglecting to help him?

Unfortunately for Harry, the whereabouts of the Doctor was Kathryn and Seven's least favorite topic of conversation. Obviously, for different reasons. For Seven, it was because she had pieced together Kathryn's involvement in his citizenship and civilian status without two days of their current travels and was displeased with his lack of open respect for the Admiral's sacrifices. For Kathryn, it was because she truly worried of his whereabouts but had to acknowledge that 200 lives were more important than one.

Neither women had expressed these opinions to one another via spoken or written word, but seemed to understand each other regardless. Nearly half a decade of exhausted conversations had a way of doing that.

"If he has failed to inform us of his intentions," Seven said, before Kathryn could even begin to speak, "then his location is irrelevant to our current plans."

Harry frowned, clearly disagreeing, "Isn't it possible he received the same coordinates that we did?"

"Not likely," Kathryn spoke up softly, "since I had to share the coordinates with you."

A member of the cargo-ship's crew entered the mess and effectively killed the conversation.

With an effort to lift the mood, Kathryn spoke up in that damned language, "I like cheese too" and shot Seven a wink.

v

Qrlthlmtrly Ccmndhd found Reginald Barclay charmingly incompetent at even the most basic forms of interpersonal communication. The very fact that they had only ever communicated through encrypted messages and had never spoken in person was the first indicator that the man who played a significant role in the well-being of the the crew of Voyager was odder than a lake full of Klingon fish (which didn't so much swim as keep everything else from swimming).

Now that they were meeting face-to-face (albeit via subspace) for the first time after each had cracked MA'AM and had (with an alarming quickness) been accosted by Voyager's former chief medical officer (who had programmed within his database quiet subroutines that monitored the use of MA'AM across most public subspace channels (and even a few private ones)). What a treat that had been, receiving a communique from a thoroughly incredulous and scandalized hologram –

'How dare you not just ask Kathryn!'

Which was fair, the woman would have probably let them both in on the secret if they had simply asked. But breaking such barriers was far more fun than asking for the keys to them.

"H-h-he hasn't responded to any of the messages I-I-I've sent, but I can assure you that his program made it through the relay stations without any degradation..." Reg's stuttering came to an uneasy halt, before being replaced with a very soft and quick, "thatIknowof."

Qrlthlmtrly sipped at his tea and pretended not to hear that. It would be one thing to ask Kathryn forgiveness for not asking her permission to help orchestrate a reconnaissance mission (one that included sending her friend's entire program matrix through a very specific set of relay stations between the Pathfinder Project headquarters and the coordinates supplied by an anonymous Romulan friend to the Doctor just a couple weeks prior), and entirely another to ask for her forgiveness for inadvertently killing him.

Reg seemed to understand the difference as well, by the way he kept wringing the small napkin he held, and so this entire conversation would move forward as if the Doctor was all good and well in the Beta Quadrant.

"I-I-I'm sorry. Admiral Paris has command of the project again in Admiral Janeway's absence. H-he's even more p-present now that she is missing. It's hard to do all I can to m-m-make contact w-without him getting suspicious."

Despite the old man's love for his missing-again son, granting Paris any sort of knowledge of their scheme to ship the Doctor off to what was hopefully Voyager (but was more likely a Romulan holding cell) was not only criminally short-sighted but also rude. It would be much easier for Paris to manufacture the appropriate permissions retroactively should this foolhardy mission be a success than it would be for him to grant legitimate permission in the present. Never-mind that it would be easier for him to claim ignorance, should this fail, if he actually remained ignorant.

(Qrlthlmtrly liked his job, but not so much that he wouldn't mind an early retirement, and certainly not so much that he wouldn't like it more with Kathryn Janeway on a starship creating misadventures. (Allowing Reg and the Doctor to talk him in to shuffling around the appropriate fake paperwork had been surprisingly easy)).

That said, there was little more he could do for them.

"I would help you with that if I could, but my position doesn't give me the power to interfere with Pathfinder any more than I have, and certainly not with Admiral Paris. I can tell you this, however: I was not lying when I told you and the good Doctor that Paris would praise your ingenious and yet mildly illegal behavior if you produce results. Right now, we're sitting on a situation where Voyager is lost at space (again) with at least five of her old crew (again), and three of her former best souls are..well, who knows where they are…:

Qrlthlmtrly sighed, then continued, "Look, what I'm trying to say is we only have a short period of time before someone in the press puts it all together and realizes that the three is really four and that Starfleet is full of officers who can only get work done when they're pulling the wool over the Admiralty's eyes. Even better yet, that they can only get work done with admirals are wooling the eyes of other admirals."

Reg looked perplexed for approximately half a second before saying, with a voice as clear as a Risa day, "Did you just say 'wooling?'"

An eye roll, a sigh, and a solid (counted) ten seconds passed before Qrlthlmtrly responded, "I have done all that I can do for you, and I certainly cannot think of another way to make your task easier. Perhaps, if Kathryn Janeway had (in her seemingly infinite wisdom) left me any indication of what she was doing, I could use my contacts to steer some of the public's attention away from Pathfinder and on to her exploits. Unfortunately, she did not. The only other person, besides the ones she took with her, who knows what is going on is a Vulcan, and the extent of my ability to speak with Vulcans begins and ends with taunting."

After another moment, Qrlthlmtrly thought to add, "And as thankful as I am that you paid me this call, it isn't my job to make you feel better about doing yours, which is, by the way, as of today, to make me feel better about you doing your job."

"U-understood, Admiral Ccmndhd."

Feeling, perhaps, a little sorry for responding so harshly to the skittish man, he tried to lighten the mood, "I doubt this will be the last midnight call you give me, Reg. You might as well call me Qrlthlmtrly."

The universal translators stuttered.

vi

B.L.T — T.E.P

Where are you?

::Delivered::

—

QcC— K.E.J

P'ox is frothing at the mouth; Owen's apparently received a dozen communiques from her all amounting to a single message: "I told you so." You're quite the topic at the Officer's Lounge (nee Club).

Also. Clearly, I've cracked MA'AM wide open. Don't use my language unless you want me to figure it out.

Also also. Where are you?

::Received::

—

R.E.B. III — H.S.L.K

I'm sorry, Harry. I managed to learn your encryption algorithms. They are very sophisticated!

I may have lost Doctor. Please don't tell the Admiral.

::Received::

—

H.S.L.K — R.E.

It was only a matter of time. I knew you could do it. Let me know if you can think of any ways to improve the security.

Also, I know these messages are supposed to be kept short, but you could have provided me with more than, "I lost the Doctor."

::Received::

—

K.E.J —QcC

I assumed you already knew. What did you think the language training was for? Fun?

—Soon to be the 8 Ball champion in three quadrants.

::Received::

—

R.E.B. III — H.S.L.K

We tried to send him to the Romulans.

I swear he got there!

::Received::

—

H.S.L.K — R.E.B. III

For someone so smart, you do very stupid things sometimes.

I'm telling the Admiral. She'll know by the time you get this.

::Received::

—

R.E.B. III — H.S.L.K

It was a good idea! You'll see!

::Received::

—

QcC— K.E.J.

We know where you're going already; we don't know where you are.

::Delivered::

—

K.E.J. — QcC

I'm not telling you. It's for the best.

Also, Reg Barclay lost the Doctor. If you didn't already know about this, please help find him. If you did know about this…

::Received::

—

K.E.J — R.E.B. III

I'm demoting you when I return.

Get him back.

::Received::

—

R.E.B. III — H.S.L.K

She's demoting me. I swear it worked!

::Received::

—

B.L.T — K.E.J.

Please find them.

::Received::

—

K.E.J — T.E.P.

Where are you.

::Delivered::

—

K.E.J — Ch.

Where are you?

::Delivered::

—

K.E.J — E.M.H

Stay put. We're on our way.

::Delivered::

—

7.o.9 — E.M.H.

Comply.

::Intercepted::

vi

Somewhere just beyond the farthest reaches of the Romulan Empire, a being blinked into existence.

English and linguistic scholars would argue with physicists and philosophers about the merits of the previous sentence for a painfully long time as well, given that this particular being had had a prior existence before that very moment...but that is truly beside the point.

Just after blinking into existence, the person in question said,

"Please state the nature of the medical emergency."

Promptly after that, he added, "Well, this isn't what I expected."

\- End Notes -

(1) Examples of such debates or questions that prompted them are as follows. 'Well, the ship hadn't really blinked into existence so much as blinked from one part of the galaxy into another part of the galaxy - the Beta Quadrant, to be precise', 'It had existed previously, just never before beyond the furthest reaches of the Romulan Empire', 'What is the meaning of existence anyway?', 'Do transporters kill you and produce your clone?', 'Oh Great Barrier deity, are we all our own clones to the power of n?'

(2) To carry this analogy to its logical conclusion: which was then subsequently put into the "grind" setting and turned on for a bit.

(3) Some days, because of MA'AM's stupendously steep learning curve and decryption algorithm, she wasn't certain what she was doing either.

(4) Of course, 'Nobody puts Aunt Kathy in a corner' was only Kathryn's best guest. There were a number of other messages this could have translated to, that she wasn't entirely too keen on settling with. These being:

'The cat is brand new'

'Farewell Monica, you won't be missed.'

'We are the Borg.'

(5) For some reason, Vorik didn't make attractive storylines for the journalist writing the stories nor a particularly photogenic subject, so his decade long story remained rather sparse.

(6) That the enterprising young journalist B'Elanna assaulted was the son of an esteemed (and missing) war hero, did not go unnoticed.

(7) Naturally, the gossip rags speculated that the admiral and her holographic boyfriend had gone on vacation, failing to recognize that their disappearances didn't coincide.

(8) The first being Voyager; the second: Libby; and the third his clarinet.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you're reading the other end notes...


End file.
